


just wait, my love (it will only be forever)

by Leni



Category: La Femme Nikita
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-29
Updated: 2010-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:15:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post finale. On reunions and the things that aren't said. But mostly, about those that <i>are</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just wait, my love (it will only be forever)

**Author's Note:**

> _Written for[The Doomed 'Ship Comment Ficathon](http://anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com/760101.html?thread=11369509#t11378469)._

He doesn't say 'goodbye'.

The next time she sees him, she doesn't say 'hello'.

They have more important things to say.

*

They lay on the same bed, relearning what years have taken from them, reshaped, given it new meaning, new goals, new souls.

"How?" he asks, when she is dressed again and turning the doorknob.

Her hair is long again, a stubborn strand curls around her neck, covers his fingerprints, the trail of his lips. Maybe she is the stubborn one, after all.

She smiles. Closes the door behind her.

She learned from the best, after all.

*

He never believed it would be over.

She did. That's why she fought so hard to change it.

*

"You moved again," she scolds from his doorstep.

He shrugs.

She knows the reason already. If she found him, too many others could follow her way.

Already unbuttoning her coat, she moves around him and steps inside, take a long look around the smaller apartment.

He stays at the door. "Why?" he asks this time.

Her coat falls onto the couch. Her blouse follows. There are new scars on her skin; his are fading before his eyes.

They don't match anymore.

They never did.

His arms remember to hold her, though, and her lips trail down a familiar path.

Maybe that's why.

*

Between nightfall and dawn. Undercover in his own home.

He leaves breadcrumbs for her to find him. Waits, between raising a son and raising his doubts.

"When?" he asks one day. "When will you stop coming?"

Her eyes are older, but for a moment they flash to the girl he met in a white, white room. "Michael…"

It's his name. Only his name.

He remembers doing the same. Saying the one word that offered some refuge from her betrayed eyes.

He closes his, and holds out his hand.

*

(He stops asking questions.)

*

"Adam is coming next weekend," he says. Section is ingrained enough that his eyes don't stray to the photograph on his bedside table.

Hers do, though; they study the grinning young man, the older man at his side. She is nowhere other than here, now, with him. The hand on his chest curls a little, an interrogation sign for something she'll never ask. Instead she says, "You think he'd remember me?"

He used to lie to her, easy as breathing and just as important. There is nothing more important than his son. "Don't let him see you, Nikita. Ever."

It's not an answer.

Section taught its lessons well.

*

It always comes back to Section, doesn't it?

*

He dreams of her in the sunlight. He imagines them, younger and _other_ , walking hand in hand down the street, a thousand strangers looking at them.

His curtains are closed when she is inside.

He reads the papers, watches the news, too well trained not to distinguish reality from sham. He follows her decisions, contemplates her options as another reporter shows on the screen.

"Did I do the right thing?" she asks one night, low against his shoulder.

He doesn't pretend not to know. A brewing war, a hundred lives in exchange for a country. "The casualties in every other scenario would have been far worse."

There is no right thing, he means.

She nods, closes her eyes at last.

He dreams of her at the Perch, watching down as the operatives react under her direction. He imagines them, older and _other_ , standing together as everyone else looks up.

*

He cannot tell which one is the nightmare.

*

The next time, he kisses her forehead at the doorstep. "Don't ask for advice unless you want me back."

He was broken and remade by a legend in her trade - without Madeline, they cannot make another one like him. Nikita was never broken, but he taught her all about weak spots. She learned, that's why she is still in charge. He hasn't forgotten, that's why he is still alive.

They are both too perfect creations, the best in all Sections. Even when one leads and the other is her escape, they still are.

They could be better, he knows. Together they can sharpen the edges back into their deepest cuts. Time has nothing on who they are, _what_ they are.

Her eyes widen. "I don't," she sounds surprised. "Michael, I never –"

He caresses her hair. "I know." That night, he makes her promise to stay for breakfast.

It doesn't take him that long.

*

In some things, they break the mold.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you," she says.

Important things.

The rest, the questions and answers, can wait some more.

 

***

The End  
15/09/10


End file.
